


Walls

by VerbenaHA



Category: Redwall Series - Brian Jacques, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Anthropomorphic, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-03-20 22:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 17,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3668070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerbenaHA/pseuds/VerbenaHA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armin says it was a grim reminder: we live in fear of humans. But we are not underground anymore. We are fighting for survival as we travel to Redwall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Levi's Log: Above Ground

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the poem written in the beginning is legitimately from the Redwall series in the book "Outcast of Redwall" (If you have never read the series, I suggest you start with that one).  
> The following fanfiction is based off that poem.
> 
> It had to be done, I'm not sorry.

“Give him a name and leave him awhile,  
Veil may grow up to be evil and vile,  
Though I hope my prediction will fail,  
And evil so vile will not live in Veil.”

That’s what they used to say about me. Erwin liked that poem and he thought it was funny that my name was Levi because of it. He learned the poem from a badger years before I went underground.

I’m so glad we’re not underground anymore.

 

 

“Sasha, any sign of them?” Connie asks.

“No, not yet,” she said over a grumbling stomach. “I say, when do we eat?”

“We eat when they get back,” Farlan says, his bushy red tail brushing up against her face.

“Or do you want to go down to the forest floor and do some foraging?”

“No, no, no,” she replied, hugging her bow close to her chest. “I’m still sore from the hike up here, you know? I couldn’t possibly go foraging, no way.”

I pull up a piece of bark and drop it on her head.

“You know, we could have helped you carry the bags of food, but you insisted on carrying all the haversacks yourself, snacking all the way here, and now there’s nothing left of your rations. It’s your own fault.”

She whines a little and shrinks into a ball, her long ears poking straight ahead like arrows.

“Won’t be long now, Sasha. I can hear ‘em comin.’”

That’s Erwin. Fates and seasons knows how he has such good intuition, but it brought us this far and I’m not about to question it now. A few minutes later, sure enough, we hear hooves padding the ground below us. Clambering down from the trees, we greet the wanderers.

“Apples, pears, potatoes, everything you could want!” Marco shouts. He’s looking up at us. Since he lost one eye, it’s hard for him to pick us out in the trees and he usually let’s Jean lead.

“When you’re ready, come and get it, step lively now!”

“You may be bigger, but you don’t give the orders, Jean!” Erwin says, but there’s a smile on his lips.

I’m the first one to make it to the forest floor, Magnolia is right behind me.

“Big bro, can I feed Jean the sugar this time?”

I roll my eyes. “Do what you want, I don’t care.” I step up closer to the horses. Marco’s hooves are the size of the Harvest moon and his mane comes down almost to his knees. He’s a massive thing and I have to really stretch my head back to see over his back.

“ARMIN! Where’s the ladder?”

“Comin’, it’s’a comin’!” After another minute, a rope ladder swings down from Marco’s back from where the saddle should be. I clamber up it and take a look into the bags hanging off of Marco’s side once I reach the top. There’s an entire feast of fruits and sweets and some meats—things we couldn’t get in the woods on our own.

“Is the haul good enough, Levi?” Marco says, barely able to see me over his shoulder.

“It’s more than enough, you’ve done well. Thank you. Get some rest while you’re here.” Marco smiles a bit and nods his head.

“What’s the status report, Armin?” The tiny mole bows his head before he speaks and I know it can’t mean good news.

“The humans know we’re fleeing,” he says. “They haven’t seen the foxes in months, but they’re still coming. They’re still going to hunt.”

“Lackaday, I just want some water,” Jean moans. “You know what kind of stuff they’re giving us back home? It’s not a pretty picture.” He is almost four hands smaller than Marco and it gives him an edge—two eyes or not. He’s determined to be the fastest, most agile horse this side of the river and, if I give him enough credit, I suppose he is.

I will never admit that to his face, though.

“Any news from the scouts?” Erwin says. He’s climbed up onto Jean’s back with Magnolia, talking to Eren. The little black mouse pricks up his ears and leans back slightly to look up into Erwin’s face. Sometimes I think his size is daunting, but standing on Marco’s back, I get a good look at what’s left of him. Scratched up ears, a missing paw... his bright fur is a little mussed up from the climb up the hills and for some reason that’s the part that bothers me.

“Haven’t seen ‘em,” Eren says.

“Haven’t seen them since summer, anyway,” Jean says.

“That’s when the foxes left us,” Sasha says. She’s only just made it to the ground. I shouldn’t be so hard on her. She really did risk a lot back during the war, and her leg hasn’t been in the best shape since her fall. I can remember what a fall like that feels like and rub my own hip idly.

“Yes,” Marco replies. “The scouts are following the foxes, making sure they won’t cause any more trouble for you. They haven’t sent word, but they should be back in three days hence.”

“We’ll be at the top of the mountain by then.”

“Great!” Jean says. “We’ll bring some water next time. Proper water.”

“Thanks, Jean,” Magnolia practically sings. “Now open wide, you deserve some sugar!”

 

 

After the horses leave, we all clamber back into the trees. It’s not technically hunting season for the humans yet, but we don’t take any chances. It’s after sunset when I go looking for Erwin. He’s found a nice place to sit at the top of a pine, looking out over the horizon. Up here, the treetops look like a sea of dark green spikes poking out of nothing. I sit down beside him on the moss and inspect his pale fur. My own winter coat hasn’t even started to come in yet, but when it does, I’ll be as pale as snow.

“You used to keep your fur so clean, now look at yourself,” I say. “You’re barely a shadow of your former self.”

He’s quiet for a minute, and that makes me nervous. I wonder if he’s thinking about his brush with death or the number of times one of the squad members got mauled by a hunting dog or when the Fox Patrol left us for dead… Truth be told, hardly any of us are in danger of being hunted—humans don’t seem to like mice and rats and weasels for breakfast or fur, but the hares and badgers and even I are all at risk. Come harvest time, we’ll be fresh meat and if the rain doesn’t come to cover our tracks, we’ll be sitting ducks.

Erwin looks at me. “Will you brush it for me, Levi?”

I sigh. “Lakes and seas, just do it yourself, wont’cha?” Still, I stand up and brush the clumps of dirt out of his fur. I can’t say I don’t like it, but his size makes the whole affair awkward.

“Hold on,” he says to me. He stretches out on the mossy part of the log and lays his head down on his one good paw. “This better?”

“Yeah, yeah, it is.” The moonlight is streaming down on us and I can see just how tangled his fur has gotten. There are even some bald patches…

“Erwin…”

“Hmm?” he lifts his head slightly to look at me.

“You’ve got mange, you idiot.”

“Have I?”

“Yes,” I say, gritting my teeth. “When the scouts get here, you’re going to ride Pixis to Redwall. You can’t hike anymore.”

“It’s another two seasons to Redwall, Levi, I can’t just leave you—”

“We. Are. Out. Of. Medicine. You know that. The foxes left us with nothing. Go to Redwall. When you’re better, you can come back.” I do not stop brushing even when his fur comes away from his skin in clumps and I’m practically covered in his shedding. It’s a disgusting feeling but a primal one that confuses me. I hate the emotions he causes in me sometimes. I can remember Armin saying that we never really feel one emotion at a time, though most creatures like to say I don’t have any at all.

“Okay. I know you can take care of the others, Levi. But I will be coming back as soon as possible.”

“Do it, then,” I snap. “I’ve got to make the entire squad wash the mites out of their fur now; you’ve probably infected us all.” He says nothing. “Why in the name of the Dark Forest gates didn’t you tell me?”

“Couldn’t waste water on baths,” he says, his tone dark. “Even you’ve stopped taking baths. You used to be so immaculate.”

It’s true. Despite hiking uphill, the water rations had run dangerously low. The drought had dried up the stream beds at the bottom of the mountain and all Jean and Marco could bring were caskets of berry wine and cordials.

“Let’s just pray for rain then.”

“There is another way, you know,” he tells me.

“No.”

“Levi—”

“No, I’m not doing it.”

“It really will help—”

“Yeah, and after I’m covered in mud, how do I get the mud off, eh? You expect me to make the entire squad go rolling in mud to clean their fur when we’ve got nothing to wash it off with?”

“You want to keep them from getting mange, you’re going to have to.” I groan audibly and he just laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More chapters to come. I'll have come up with an update schedule with the next one.
> 
> (Edit) This, and some of the other chapters will be written from Levi's perspective, as part of a log he's keeping.


	2. Underground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Food is scarce and winter is coming fast... could the humans above ground be a threat to the lives of the woodland animals?
> 
> Update: I have been... informered that this chapter was written in mostly present tense. I'm going to fix that and reupload the chapter soon.

“There is peace in the dark where small beasts can go,

Deep in the ground under the snow.

To be safe and sound from the big beasts above,

This burrowing cave is a labor of love.”

Trying to wash the grime from his cloak, Erwin hums the poem to himself. There is more to it than that, but he cannot remember the other verses now. From what his father used to tell him, the Underground was once a home to moles that weasels invaded and took over for their own shelter. He does not know what happened to those moles and he never thought to ask his father about it...

“Erwin,” another weasel calls to him. “They caught another one.”

“Another what?” Erwin asks.

“You know what,” he says grimly.

“Mike, please tell me that you’re talking about fish, and not thieves.”

“Sorry, not this time,” Mike replies.

Erwin groans and glances at his mother who is standing over a cooking pot. She smiles sadly and nods.

“Go on. Go and make sure nothing gets out of control,” she says to him. Erwin leaves the washing in the basin and stands, following Mike out of the door. Since the start of winter, food had been going missing. Erwin had tried to keep the peace between the woodland creatures, however, they had little babes to feed and demanded justice. A handful of the culprits had been caught by the police and banished from the Underground to fend for themselves in the cold winter, but there were still a handful of thieves that had yet to be captured.

“This better be the last one,” Erwin says to Mike while they walk. “There’s naught more we can do to scavenge for food this winter.”

He follows Mike out of the camp of weasels to the middle of the Underground. There’s a clearing there, and a mural painted into the floor of a sunrise, but no one living underground has seen the real sunrise in a long time. Nearly a hundred of such creatures are gathered around a small stoat, his winter coat just coming in. Forced to his knees in the middle of the circle, his hands are tied behind his back. The woodlanders jeer at him and shout at him.

Erwin looks at Mike: “Where are the badgers?”

“No idea,” he shrugs. “They haven’t come down yet, but the adders have; you can see Sanes in the crowd.” Erwin steps forward. As a weasel, he is much taller than the mice and hedgehogs standing around in a circle and his voice can heard echoing throughout the chamber.

“PEACE! All of you, that is enough!” Erwin says. The other creatures stop their taunting and begin murmuring amongst themselves. Some make a path for Erwin to walk to the center of the clearing to stand in front of the thieving stoat. Across from him, Sanes does the same, winding his scaly body underneath the others feet so he can move forward as well.

Erwin recognizes the stoat. Infamous for his speed and cunning, he had been accused of theft several times but never caught in the act. Erwin steps forward and studies him for a while.

“Levi,” he says. “You have a partner, a squirrel. Am I right?”

The tiny stoat just spits.

“And I know you have a sister—or at least she calls you brother. Where are they?”

“You’re not clever just because you know my name and think you know my family.”

“No,” Erwin says, a sideways grin breaking his countenance: “that is not why I’m clever. But you call those creatures family. I assume, if you stole something, you would share it with them as all good beasts would?”

Levi does not answer. Erwin looks up at the two guards standing behind him. They hold spear points to the back of Levi’s neck, keeping him on his knees. Erwin has a suspicion that it would not be enough to keep Levi contained if he tried to escape.

“What did he steal? Where is the proof?” Erwin asks them.

“Sloppy work is what it was,” says one of the guards, a hare named Marlowe.

“He was taking bread straight out of the kitchens,” says the other, a hare named Hitch. “He didn’t see the trip wire we set for him though, and got locked in.”

“Really?” Erwin says. He looks into the crowd and stares at a red squirrel standing in front. “Is that what happened?” The squirrel jumps slightly. He’s holding a knife in his hand, looking prepared for a fight in case Levi tries to run… or perhaps to save him in case he gets into deeper trouble. “Your name is Farlan, isn’t it?”

No one says a word.

“Leave him alone,” Levi says.

“Erwin, we have the proof, let’sss be done with thisss.”

“Sanes,” Erwin says, looking at the snake, “There’s more to this story than petty theft.”

“It isss not petty if thessse young onesss think the whole world belongsss to them.”

Erwin nods slightly. “It will belong to them one day. Many of us do not see eye to eye on how the food rations are divided. Perhaps, in exchange for a little more bread, this little family of stoats and squirrel will be willing to make a deal.”

More murmuring from the crowd. Erwin glances around the heads of the creatures wondering where the real leaders are: the badgers. So far, not a single one is in the crowd.

“What kind of a deal?” a small voice says from the crowd. A female stoat, armed just like the squirrel across from her with a hand carved knife steps into the clearing.

“Now, you three,” Erwin says. “I imagine you’ve been taking turns stealing food out of the kitchens?”

“They’ve got nothing to do with this,” Levi says.

“That’s very noble of you, stoat,” says Erwin, “taking all the credit, but I wasn’t done speaking.” Marlowe and Hitch stick their spear points further into Levi’s neck and he bends forward slightly to keep from being pricked. “You and your friends are skilled. We need skills like that.”

“Thisss isss not up for debate, weasel,” Sanes retorts. “Jussst banish them. All of them.”

“That’s not fair!” the tiny female stoat shouts. She walks toward the snake, knife held aloft. Across from her, Farlan mirrors her actions.

From his place on the ground, Levi twitches his ears. Only because he was watching for the signal does Erwin have enough time to react: jumping forward, he catches Levi in his paws before he can leap under his legs. The hares gawk, surprised. Meanwhile, the squirrel and stoat from the crowd have closed in on the two hares, cutting them down with their knives.

“YARGH!” Marlowe shouts.

“Oh, oh, oh!” Hitch yells, jumping on one foot while she holds the other one in her paws.

“LET GO,” Levi screams. He kicks wildly, but Erwin’s bigger paws hold him fast. Around them, the mob of woodland creatures have closed in on the other two young ones, grabbing them and holding them up in the air to keep them from escaping.

“Now we mussst banish them,” Sanes says as though the matter is settled.

“No!” several beasts shout. “Kill them!”

“String ‘em up!”

“Make ‘em starve slow in the Pit!”

“ENOUGH!” From the back of the crowd, a badger steps forward. Her black eyes move across the space and it seems that she makes eye contact with each creature one by one before Sanes raises his head and speaks again.

“Thank you for ressstoring peace Nanaba—”

“Enough Sanes,” she quips. “Keep your forked tongue in your mouth and listen to what Erwin has to say. He has only ever looked out for the majority’s better interests.” Erwin catches her eye and smiles openly.

“That’s right—OW!” Marlowe says. He wriggles on the ground a little, a gash in his side.

“Marlowe, Hitch,” Erwin says. “Go to the fox camp and get medicine for your wounds.” The two hares bravely hop off without another word. Erwin looks at the three thieves, now tied up on the ground.

“What’s your name?” Nanaba asks the little female stoat. “Magnolia,” she says. “Very pretty name for a stoat, I imagine,” she says. Magnolia makes a face.

“Never mind what my real name is!” she says. “Call me Magnolia. My brothers do.”

“So you consider the squirrel your brother as well?” Erwin asks.

“You better believe it,” Magnolia says, a pretty smile framing her sharp teeth.

“It’s good that you consider any creature your family. You defended Levi when you did not have to. The three of you are a cunning team.”

“What exactly do you want to do with us?” Levi snaps. “Because banishment sounds pretty good if I don’t have to listen to this chatter any longer.”

There is a murmur of interest from the crowd. On one side; moles, squirrels, mice are looking up to Nanaba and Erwin, while on the other hand, a plethora of rats, stoats, and weasels are looking to Sanes to settle the matter. Hungry bellies are rumbling from both sides and Erwin knows it is far too early in the season for every beast to be so hungry.

“What I would like,” Nanaba says, “is to have your tongues for dinner.” A handful of weasels and rats snicker in agreement. “But what I’m going to do is put you all in the Pit for the night.”

“What’s that?” Magnolia asks.

“Oh, you’ve never been?” Erwin asks. “If you like dark, damp places where the walls reach out with sharp spikes to scratch at your skin, you will love the Pit.”

 

 

The Pit turns out to be part of a cave-in that happened last spring. The moles found a hundred or so precious stones behind a weak wall of shale, but as they tried to dig them out, and the whole wall came crumbling down. The result was a tiny cave with a small hole for an entrance that had been used more than once as a cellblock. Magnolia juggles a couple of the blue stones between her paws while the boys sit with their knees tucked under their chins.

“Think they’ll kill us?” Farlan asks.

“Dunno what that weasel has got planned, but I’m not going to go along with it,” Magnolia chirps.

“Mags, you should have kept quiet. Levi could have gotten us out of there and we wouldn’t be in this mess!”

“Both of you shut up,” Levi snaps. “I’m thinking.”

“Well stop thinking, and get some sleep!” Mike shouts from the other side of the door that blocks the entrance to the pit. “You’ll find out what Erwin wants from you in the morning. If you really don’t want to save your skins that way, you can risk freezing in the snow above ground.”

“Why do you think we were taking food to begin with!” Farlan shouts. “CREATURES ARE STARVING!”

Mike does not respond. Levi shakes his head. He can remember the day he swore to be faithful to the badgers and adders and forage for all creatures in the underground. On behalf of himself and his siblings, they were offered shelter and food and most importantly, protection.

As they were led down deep into the ground they passed warehouse after warehouse, supposedly holding vast stores of food behind their locked doors. If Levi had known just how much harder it was to forage for several hundred instead of just three—despite the shelter and safety and teamwork—he would have kept his distance from the Underground. But then again, Magnolia might not be alive…

For a while nothing happens, and then the tiny creatures locked inside the pit hear Mike’s voice again.

“No, you are not speaking to them,” he says.

“Please, please!”

“Hange, no.”

“Great seasons, it’s that crazy mouse!” Farlan whispers.

“I just want to talk to them,” Hange says.

“Go back to camp, Hange,” Mike replies.

“What does she want?” Levi shouts.

“Nothing, stoat! Go to sleep!”

“LEVI? IS THAT YOU? CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

“Yes, mouse, I can hear you. What do you want to talk about?”

“What are you doing, brother?” Magnolia asks.

“Hush up,” Levi says quietly. “I have got an idea.”

“LEVI! HOW DID YOU TAKE MY SLINGSHOT LAST SUMMER?”

Levi starts. He thought he had gotten away with taking her slingshot without her noticing, but now it seems that somehow she knew all about it…

“I… I don’t know what you mean, mouse,” he says. “You don’t have to shout like that, either, you’re going to keep us all awake.” He leans in towards Magnolia and whispers to her; “When I give you the signal, start singing your lullaby, okay?”

“You got it.”

“Hange,” Levi says out loud, “Since when do you carry slingshots anyway? You’ve got that sword on your back, why don’t you use that?”

“Swords are worthless against humans if you don’t have the right equipment,” Hange says.

“What equipment?”

“Wings, Levi. If we all had wings we wouldn’t have to worry about the humans!”

“Why do you care about the humans?” Farlan asks.

“Because they hunt us, you know. I lost my family to human inventions—great wooden slabs that snap your neck when you step on them! If only…” she’s quiet for a minute. “That’s why I need to know how you manage to sneak around in places without being seen!”

In the Underground, different creatures make their camps on different levels. At the very top, adders and badgers guard the entrance while newcomers are generally made to stay on the lowest level and make their way up as time goes by, with hard work. The mouse camp is on a ledge close to the cave ceiling. The tiny ladders and bridges leading to it are designed for their tiny bodies that other creatures cannot climb. Hange’s slingshot had been hanging from a hook at the entrance of her tent and, naturally, Levi had assumed she would blame some other mouse for taking it.

“If you’re assuming I have wings, you’re crazier than I thought.”

“I know you don’t have wings, stoat,” Hange says. “But I know you took my slingshot.”

Levi wriggles his ears towards Magnolia and she begins her song.

“Oh? Prove it.”

“Well, I can’t now, can I?” Hange says. “But Erwin says he saw you leave the mouse camp the day it went missing.”

“If he thinks I took your slingshot, why didn’t he do anything about it?”

“Because he thinks the same as me.”

“And what would that be?” Levi asks.

“That you could really be an asset to help us defend ourselves against the humans.”

Magnolia stops her song until Levi taps her foot paw and she begins again. In the pale torchlight, Levi can see Farlan staring at him, wide eyed.

“Why do we need to defend ourselves?” Levi asks, his throat feeling dry. “We’re safe down here.”

“Define safe?”

Levi had his suspicions about the humans. Every fall, just before winter, the humans could be heard above ground, tracking the woodlanders. More and more animals came to the Underground looking for shelter. The moles had been digging further and further down to make room for everyone but there had to be a limit… Levi had not seen sunlight in ages and he dearly missed some of the fruits that grew above ground that were scarce underground.

“The humans don’t know where we are,” Farlan says.

“I know that’s what Sanes and the other snakes say, but— Mike?” Hange stops talking. Levi smiles when he hears the telltale sound of heavy snoring. “Mike!” Hange shouts, but there doesn’t seem to be a response that Levi can hear.

“Looks like you’re our guard now, mouse,” he says.

“Well, alright then! As I was saying—” Levi frowns.

“Don’t you get it, mouse?” he says. “The three of us are getting out of here and you can’t stop us.”

“Even if you did manage to make it out of the Underground alive, how long do you think you’ll last up there? There is no food until Spring, you must know that.”

“What do you care?”

“I care because you care,” she replies.

Levi stands and gestures for Farlan and Magnolia to do the same.

“I don’t care what you’re talking about mouse. I’m getting my family out of here!” As he lunges for the doorway it opens wide and, once again, Levi is caught in massive paws of Erwin. Nanaba is there as well, along with Mike who is standing upright, wide awake, still pretending to snore.

“Yes,” Erwin says. “One way or another your family will leave the Underground, little thief. But the choice is up to you whether you leave as friends or as foes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are updating Wednesdays, folks! I hope you enjoy this crazy crossover.


	3. Levi's Log: Farlan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A prequel of sorts, how Levi and his little sister Isobel meet the red squirrel Farlan.

The only reason I can think that a squirrel would go underground is to be protected from the humans. I can’t say it was an easy decision for him when the tops of the trees were his home for so long. When he came to me asking for help, I looked at his muddy coat, so caked with dirt I could not see the red fur underneath and said, “Shouldn’t you be hibernating?”

“Can’t hibernate without a tree,” he said. He explained to me that the humans had cut down the tree his family had lived in, as well as the surrounding forest to build their stone houses. After that the squirrels just… split up searching for new homes. He was on his own, surviving. I respected that, but I did not trust him. I decided he must have been desperate to look to a stoat for help—and he was. I had my own problems though, with Isobel.

The squirrel told me his name was Farlan and said he… demonstrated how skilled he was with a knife. It was my fault. I had been holding Isobel in my haversack to keep her warm, but I set her down on the snow and told Farlan to “prove his skill.” Really, I was hoping I could take his purse—there was obviously a little food in it—and I knew he wanted to do the same thing with my bag but there was no way I was going to let him put Isobel in danger. We sparred for a bit until she started crying. He stopped and stared at my bag, then at me.

“Forget it,” he said and sheathed his knife. “You’ve clearly got your own problems too.” He sheathed his knife, but to my surprise, he pulled out some seeds he had gathered before the snow got too heavy on the ground to forage properly. “These are for her.”

He handed them to me and started walking off. I pride myself in being a good judge of character, though really, my skills don’t compare to some others I have met. I choose my friends very carefully. I didn’t care about the food in his purse anymore, I wanted his company, and I needed it too. I called him back and told him where I was taking Isobel and that if he didn’t mind living underground there was a dwelling place where all creatures were welcome. He admitted that he had heard of it but did not think it was real.

“It’s real,” I told him. “I’ve got a map to get there.”

“But you’ve never been there?” he said.

“Let me carry the food and you can take the map,” I said. It was no trick, but I knew it sounded like one. I waited to see what he would do.

He watched me for a minute then said “Deal.” That’s how the three of us traveled to the Underground.

I’m glad Nanaba was the one who admitted us and not Sanes: I would have turned and run if an adder had come to greet us first. I was just as afraid of the big badger, but I knew she would not eat us at least. She just wanted to talk. She asked us all sorts of questions—most I did not think were necessary. Being a squirrel, she asked Farlan even more questions.

In the end, she said the best thing for Isobel was to take her to the fox camp since they were experts in herbs and medicine. The foxes had all sorts of potions stored away, but they would not teach their craft to outsiders. If they had been willing to teach me, I may have taken some of their potions and left the Underground to take care of Isobel myself. But Nanaba asked us for nothing in return except for a solemn promise that we would be good beasts and defend our fellow neighbors. For Isobel’s sake, I swore to her oath, but Farlan seemed to be suspicious about the whole thing. I could not blame him for that. It wasn’t until Isobel was well again—by that point she insisted we call her Magnolia instead and refused to answer to Isobel—when I realized that we really had been cheated.

I do not blame Nanaba or any of the other badgers. The way the adders rationed food was unfair. Food was not divided by even portions to who needed it more, it was all divided by rank. If you wanted more food, you had to work for it, which I respected, but not all of us creatures could work in the same way. The moles were told to dig tunnels deeper into the ground and were given more food than anyone else. The foxes were allowed to go up to the surface to forage during clear days. There were rumors that sometimes they would capture local woodland creatures and bring them back for the adders to eat… I still don’t know if I believe that. I do not want to.

As for the rest of us—squirrels, mice, stoats, weasels, and the rest—as long as we were still breathing, we would get some bread and maybe some soup. Water was not scarce—enough of it ran down underground from above, especially when the snow started to melt but sometimes it would flood the cave floor…

I am so glad we are not underground anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you folks are enjoying this crossover, I know I am.  
> The next chapter is going to be the hardest to write, I think, but the rest are pretty much fleshed out already.
> 
> Constructive Critique is always appreciated!


	4. The Village

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The woodlanders are running out of food in the forest... perhaps the human kitchens have enough spare crumbs to get them through the winter!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE: Chapters 5 and 6 will be uploaded tonight! They're coming, I can promise this time.

From their cell in The Pit, Levi, Magnolia, and Farlan were led up the stairwell into the sunlight for the first time since they had arrived to the Underground. All manner of creatures were with them; badgers, rats, weasels, hares, and a handful of those funny birds that liked to live underground. Hange was practically doing summersaults through the snow with excitement.

“They will let us go, won’t they?” she said. “Erwin, please say they will!”

“When the birds arrive, they may give us the all clear or not, Hange, you just have to wait.”

“The all clear for what?” Levi asked.

“As Erwin said, it is your choice,” Nanaba said evenly. “Banishment or join our team to sneak into the human dwelling and borrow some food.”

“How do you borrow something you intend to eat?” Magnolia said.

“You make a good point,” Erwin said, but he waved his paw in the air to dismiss the subject. “Here’s the situation, which I am sure you already aware of; humans have cut down the forest until there is little food left. One solution is to move deeper into the woods, however, hunting season is almost upon us and there are simply too many creatures that would be left vulnerable if we tried to move out now. So, the plan is simple—difficult, but simple. Sneak into the human dwellings and take as much food as we can carry that will not be missed. We need to move in and out unnoticed.” He glanced sideways at Hange. “And I must stress that we must go unnoticed.”

“You expect us to do what?” Levi says.

“You heard him,” Farlan cut in; “Go into a human’s home, get caught, get slaughtered, get eaten.”

“That’s the exciting part!” Hange said, her tail kicking up snow as she jumped around. “The way they try to trap us in so many different ways, I wish I knew where they developed such ideas of torture. I want to study them—when will the birds be here?”

“Who are you talking about?” Levi asked.

“We are already here.” Up in the trees, a cawing voice boomed down over the woodlanders. Everyone looked up to see an Osprey perched in the trees, two tiny warblers sitting on either side of him. They hopped about, shivering in the snow. “The horses say all is clear. The humans will lock up their doors tonight and stay inside. You should be able to pass underfoot unnoticed.”

“Thank you for the report, Pixis,” one of the Badgers named Ian responded.

“Ian, the horses also say this: the rats and mice should be extra careful. The stoats are longed for their fur, however there are greater traps set in store for the smaller creatures,” the great bird said.

“Understood,” Ian replied.

“Anka, Gustav,” Pixis said to the warblers next to him. “We will return south now. Good luck, woodlanders.” Magnolia could feel the bird’s eyes watching her and her friends while they took flight and their wings carried them to warmer territory. She felt jealous.

“So, what do you say?” Erwin asked, looking at the three thieves in turn. Behind them, Ian and Nanaba were prepared to pick them up and carry them somewhere far away into the woods where they would surely be lost in the wilderness if they refused to help.

“We just grab as much food as we can make a run for it?” Levi asked Erwin.

“On one condition,” Erwin said.

“What’s that?”

“You will not be doing this alongside your friends. Levi, you will come with me. Magnolia will go with Hange and her team, and Farlan will travel with Mike and his team.”

Levi was silent for a moment, his expression seething. “We’ll do it.”

“What?” Farlan snapped. Levi only twitched his ears. Farlan watched him for a moment, but then stood up straighter, saying nothing else. “Alright, fine. What are we waiting for?”

“YES!” Hange cheered.

~*~

After sunset, the various teams of woodlanders snuck down into the human village, splitting up and crowding into little crevices and corners until they were given the signal to move in and start grabbing vittles.

“Can I ask you something?” Farlan asked Mike. He stared at the mountainous buildings of wood and clay that the humans lived in. Through glass windows, flames could be seen lighting up the different rooms, but one by one they began to go dark.

“Yes…” Mike said, distracted. His eyes were trained on every single flicker of a candlestick, every shadow that moved in the dark windows.

“What is the Underground?” Mike glanced at Farlan, confused. “I mean, who used to live there? What was it originally?”

Mike did not answer, but his other team member, a rat named Ilse did. “It’s a dwelling cave for bats.”

“A bat cave!” Farlan gasped.

“Yes,” Mike said quietly, “Bats from all over the South flew North looking for respite from humans that were invading their homes.”

“And then we invaded their home?” Farlan muttered.

“Actually, the bats have been very generous in the space they give us,” Ilse said.

“I have never even heard a bat in the cave.” Farlan looked skeptical. “Let alone seen one.”

“They live in a different part of the Underground,” she replied. “Close to the surface where they can fly outside at night.”

“So… the Underground has more than one entrance?”

“It has several,” Mike said. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason.”

Across the square, Hange, Magnolia, and Dita crouched under an empty barrel. A few feet away, a mouse trap had been set with a scrap of bread sitting on it. Hange stepped toward it, but Dita held her back.

“I just want to look at it!”

“Hange, I must insist that you remain at your post!” Dita said. His bigger size as a rat allowed him to catch his team member in his bigger paws and hold her still. “It’s a mouse trap, you know that.”

“I just want to inspect it, see if I can figure out how it works, I won’t touch it! Dita, put me down!”

“I don’t want to get in the way or anything,” Magnolia said quietly, “But I think maybe we should wait for another time to look at the mouse traps, Hange. Look up there.” She pointed to a window across a wide street where several dead animals were hanging. The sight made them all blanch.

“That’s why we need to stay quiet and avoid any traps,” Dita said. He set Hange back on the ground and she stayed quiet until it was time to move.

As the candles and flames inside the homes flickered out one by one, the snow on the ground faded from a faint orange to a light blue. Levi felt a chill run through him.

“How are we supposed to see anything?” he asked Erwin.

“There are others that will help us,” the weasel replied.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ll see. Once the final flame goes out, we will hear the signal. That’s when we move into the homes, grab what we can, and move out.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Levi said. “It sounds like you’ve done this before.”

“Only once,” Erwin said. “There… used to be someone else who led these sorts of missions, but now it’s only me.”

“What happened?”

Erwin was calm while he spoke. “As you know, this is a very dangerous task. We have the cover of nightfall, but that only means we may not be able to see the traps laid out in front of us.”

Levi let everything sink in, silently.

“I noticed none of the foxes came with us,” he said after a while.

“It was decided that the foxes were too big to go unnoticed.”

“Who decided that?”

“The adders. Why?”

“Nothing,” Levi said grimly, “I just assumed you were going to say that.”

“You don’t trust the snakes, do you?” Erwin asked.

“I learned to live with them.”

“We all work together in the Underground,” Erwin said gently as the very last light in the human village went out. “If any creature cannot be trusted, they will be dealt with swiftly.”

_Screeeeeeeeeeeeech!_

“That’s the signal!” Erwin said. Running through the streets, Levi could hear the pitter patter of tiny paws gliding over the snow like rain. He spat and watched it turn to ice at his feet.

“Why aren’t we going?” Levi asked.

“You and I have a special task and we are waiting for reinforcements.”

“You did not say anything about that to me!” Levi quipped. He wished he had been allowed to bring a dagger or a slingshot or something to arm himself with!

From above, the animal that had made the screeching signal flew down and perched from a rooftop above Erwin and Levi’s heads. He hung upside down, folding his black wings around him.

“Nile,” Erwin greeted him warmly.

“The others are moving, are moving,” Nile said. “We will watch them. You wait here, wait here.”

“Understood,” Erwin said. Nile flew off into the night and disappeared.

“Bats? Those are your reinforcements?”

“Despite the old expression,” Erwin said, “Bats can actually see very well in the dark.”

“Yes, so can cats, but I wouldn’t expect them to be much help in a situation like this either.”

“Why do you say that?” Erwin asked.

“Because, none of these animals live like we do! We are burrowers, Erwin, like moles—we scavenge in the dirt! I don’t understand why we’re sneaking through human kitchens like mice and foxes. This is stealing, and I cannot understand why bats and birds and badgers, and least of all, snakes would even talk to us let alone help us!”

“A common enemy, Levi,” Erwin said. “That is the reason, we have a common enemy.”

“Erwin, there you are!” Another bat flew down and made herself visible in the moonlight. “Are you ready sweetie, sweetie?” Erwin looked at Levi who only nodded.

“Yes. We are ready.” He turned to Levi and said, “Levi, this is Marie. She is going to lead us to the stables behind the barn.”

“We won’t be taking food like the others?” Levi asked.

“No. We are going to scavenge for something else: information.”


	5. Bats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnolia, Levi, and Farlan get their first look at a human village... and human pets.

“The Underground used to be a tiny hole underneath a tree stump. When the humans made settlements to the south, more and more woodland families were uprooted and travelled north. However, humans were making their homes and cutting down trees to the north as well. The tiny hole under the tree stump became a home for a family of moles how dug deep to make the dwelling bigger and bigger. One thing led to another, and soon multiple mole families were burrowing and living in the Underground.”

-A History of the Undergorund, as written by Father Smith

 

 

The snow in the streets was nothing like the fluffy clumps in the forest. Human feet had been walking through it, most of them bringing horses with carts in their wake. The snow on the ground was sludge now, melting from the heat of bustling life. At the end of a row of houses was a stable, a tiny oil lantern burning in the doorway.

“Marco, you’re standing too close.”

“Hmm?” the bigger horse shook his mane out of his eyes and look down at the pony next to him.

“Are you even awake?” Jean asked.

Marco yawned before he replied. “I am.”

“Well, no dozing! And stay on your side, you smell like manure and sweat.”

Both beasts went silent when Marie fluttered through the open door of the stable and perched above their heads. She hung upside down gracefully from the rafters of the open barn, her wings wrapped around her tiny form like a cloak that was just barely too small for her size.

“Not arguing again, I hope, I hope?”

“No, ma’am,” Jean said.

“He started it.”

“Marco!”

Marco looked up at Marie, grinning. “Is Erwin coming?”

“Yes, yes,” she said. “He is bringing another with him.”

“Pixis?”

“No, no.”

Jean and Marco looked at each other. They waited a moment longer and then the sound of tiny foot paws could be heard scurrying inside the stable door.

“Long day in the field, Marco?” Erwin said. He jumped up onto a window sill and Levi followed.

“Yes,” replied Marco. “Who’s this?”

“Levi, he’s here to help.”

“Is that all?” Levi grumbled.

“ _You left the stable door open!_ ” The animals jumped at the sound of a human voice coming towards the stable.

“Levi,” Erwin said, “Jump down!” He did so, scurrying behind one of Marco’s enormous hooves before the two humans barged into the stable.

“ _You can’t do that, Nicolas, what if the Snatcher comes for the horses?_ ” said the taller one.

“ _The Snatcher hasn’t taken horses yet, dummy,_ ” said the smaller one, his voice much higher and spoken through his nose.

“ _Well, whoever it is, they already snatched one of Conner’s dogs._ ”

“ _Only the lame one._ ”

“ _All the same, leave the door shut!_ ”

Levi could hear the sound of a bolt being locked before the lamp was extinguished and all was still.

“ _Good night Marco! Good night Jean!_ ”

“ _HUSH! Get in the house; we don’t know where the Snatcher is!_ ”

“What was that about?” Levi said once everything was quiet.

“Some other human has been causing trouble,” Erwin said.

“They mentioned something about a missing dog,” said Levi. “Do you think they will cancel the hunt?”

“No, no,” Marie replied sadly.

“Your fur is far too valuable,” Marco agreed. “And besides, with all the humans together, no one would try to _snatch_ them.”

Erwin switched his attention to Jean and the two spoke quickly, hushed. Levi stepped out from behind Macro’s hoof and tried to find his way back to the door but almost immediately bumped into Marco’s other hoof.

“Careful,” Marco said.

“Have you never been on a hunt?” Levi asked.

“Gosh, no. I’m a working horse.”

“What about Jean?”

“You did _what_?” Erwin almost shouted, his usual composure broken for a moment. Jean shuffled from hoof to hoof.

“Well, I did, and I didn’t,” Jean replied. “Let me explain.”

“Go on then.”

“Alright, you know that stack of hay where we said we were going to hide the bags?”

“Yes…” Erwin said.

“Well,” the pony said sheepishly, “The stable boy was standing near it at the time—you heard him, he was the taller one. I had planned to hide the bags inside, so I stashed them in a barrel until he left, but then the other one came and found them.”

“And, and?” Marie said, her screeching bat voice hitting a high note that made Levi shiver

“He took them inside the house,” Jean said. “I don’t know why he took them inside; they are supposed to hang on those hooks...”

“No,” Erwin said.

“I can guide you in, guide you in,” said Marie more calmly. “I will watch from the window and call to you if there is trouble.”

“How will we hear you?” Levi asked.

“You can’t hear a bat’s call from the Underground,” Erwin explained. “But you can definitely hear it from behind glass.”

“Tell me about it…” Jean mumbled.

Marco gave him a look. “Don’t be nasty.”

“What about the Snatcher?” Levi asked.

Erwin shrugged. “That is not our problem. If there is someone like that on prowl tonight, I doubt it will mean trouble for us so let’s go on.”

“We’re going into a human house?”

“That would be correct. Marie? We only need you to guide us to an unlocked window, we can handle the rest.” Marie agreed in her chirruping voice and took off.

“Be careful in there,” Jean said. “I know these humans have invested in some traps.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“Traps?” Levi asked.

 

Mike set his bag down on a windowsill.

“So what’s in there?” Farlan asked him.

“Food. Grab as much as you can stuff in your pack and then we’ll go back to the rendezvous.”

“Oh,” Farlan said. “Why didn’t you say so sooner? This sounds like a perfect job for me!”

“Because I didn’t want you to get over excited—like her.” He nodded at Hange’s team across the street. It had taken them just as long to find an unlocked window: there was too much she wanted to look at.

“She doesn’t come to the village often, does she?”

“Not as often as she would like to, no.” Mike pulled several pieces of string and hook from his bag. With more dexterity than Farlan expected from a weasel his size, he clambered up the window frame and shoved the hook through a hole where a piece of cloth had been placed over the glass. After some maneuvering, he managed to get the hook attached to the handle on the bottom of the window, then jumped and landed on his feet next to Farlan. The tiny window opened up with just enough space to let them crawl through.

“Wonderful,” Farlan whispered, feeling adrenaline run through him.

 

“I can’t believe it is only autumn,” Magnolia said, awed by the amount of snow still coming down. “It’s so warm underground that you never notice the snow falling.”

The others ignored her. They managed to lever a window open with some wooden dowels they swiped from a barrel. They crawled through the space and jumped to the floor, their foot paws landing on plush carpet.

“WOAH! What is this stuff?” Magnolia said. Hange grabbed her snout.

“Hush! The humans might hear your squeaking.” She stepped back and rubbed her paws in the carpet. “It’s a handicraft the humans make to keep their floors warm. Come on, we need to go downstairs.”

“What’s downstairs?” she said, but Hange was already gone.

“The cellar,” Dita answered. “We need to find food.”

“Ah… sounds good.”

“Come on, let’s go before she gets herself caught!”

 

Marie flew back to the weasel and stoat when she found that there was a dog door built into the front of the house. After they slipped inside, Erwin stood perfectly still, his ears twitching back and forth, picking up sounds.

“The dogs aren’t here, they must be upstairs. Stay close, we’re still in danger.”

Traps _and_ dogs? Levi felt cold despite the energy in his limbs telling him to turn and run. This whole mission was more trouble than it was worth.

“What information do we need?” he asked.

“The humans keep a log of what happens in the village. If we can find it—”

“You can read?” Erwin turned and looked at Levi.

“Yes?”

“Nothing. So, we just find the log and get out?”

“Yes.”

“Alright,” Levi said reluctantly. “I’m right behind you.”

Erwin knew what he was looking for. After a minute of scanning the room he pointed out that the saddle bags with the log books inside of them were not there. A few more searches found that they were neither in the kitchen nor the closets.

“Does that mean they’re upstairs?” asked Levi. Erwin was quiet for a moment.

“I believe so.”

“No. Oh, no…”

“Don’t come with me,” Erwin said. “Just keep an eye out down here. I’ll be back.” He bounded up the stairs silently and Levi hunkered down under the kitchen table. As long as things were quiet upstairs, he decided Erwin was alright. He sat there for a long while and then heard the sound of the cellar door creaking open. He had noticed the open door with a sliver of darkness between it and the wall behind it. Now there was a maw of inky shadow that seemed to suck all light into it.

There was a click-clack sound of a larger animal treading across the stone on four paws. After a second, it paused and Levi heard it sniffing. Then growling.

“Hold, friend,” he said. He had been told that dogs would respond to being called friend, or something like that.

“You do not belong here, little welp,” it said. Levi could hear age in its voice, a sniffling in its nose.

“We’re just looking for some paper.”

“Plenty of it in the bin out back of the stable. You’re looking for food, is that it?” Levi swallowed.

“No, really. You can ask the weasel, he’s upstairs—”

The dog nearly barked out loud. “If he’s hurting my humans—”

“No, no! He’s just looking for the log books, honest!” The dog came up much closer to Levi and sniffed him. Levi backed up into a leg of the table and wished more than ever that he was armed. In the dark, the dog had the advantage of knowing its territory, but defenseless, Levi had no chance of winning a fight.

“I don’t believe there’s a weasel, scum,” it growled. “If I catch you taking anything from this house, you are a dead beast.” It walked back across the floor and through the dog door at the front of the house. Levi sat back down. After a while longer, Erwin came down the stairs, a book that was just as tall as he was strapped to his back.

“Erwin, there’s a dog outside!”

“What? Did you see it?”

“It came up from the cellar. It told me not to take anything.”

Erwin bit his lip. “Let’s go out the window,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first piece of fanwork as a series and it's turning into a trainwreck; the way the chapters switch between present and past tense not withstanding.
> 
> You guys tell me, should I fix it or leave it as is and make better edits during my next work?


	6. Beware, beware!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi finds something dangerous in a human cellar while Nanaba finds something hungry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a beast to upload, it's already one in the morning, I am so sorry.

“Eventually, the mole cave grew so big that a cave-in revealed it had become part of a snake’s hole. Overwhelmed by the numbers and strength of the mole families, it decided to make a bargain for its life.” -A History of the Underground, as written by Father Smith

 

Out in the snow, the different woodland creatures from the Underground huddled under a cart of deer fur.

“Does anyone else think that this is ironic?” asked a rat named Shadis.

“A little,” Hange said, but she seemed undisturbed by the piles of animal fur sitting over their heads.

“There’s Levi!” Magnolia called.

“What?” Farlan jumped. “Where?”

“I’m right here, shut up!” Levi all but shouted. He and Erwin had to cross an open street to get to them.

“You got the book!” said Hange.

“One of them,” Erwin said. “I managed to skim the other one. Are we ready to head back?”

The others nodded.

Magnolia shivered. “Let’s hurry, I’m cold.”

“What?” asked Levi, puzzled.

“It’s my feet,” she said. “They’re freezing.” In the dark, he could not see her feet, but he did not like knowing that her feet were still cold despite having grown into her winter coat early… her tail was already tipped in white with a black speck on the end marking her as a stoat. He thought about how badly humans wanted her just to skin her and his blood boiled.

“I noticed the fur on your feet wasn’t looking so good,” Erwin said gently.

“It’s mange,” Mike said. All the animals jumped away from Magnolia. “It isn’t bad, yet. We will take you to the fox camp, they can help.”

 

It was almost dawn when the animals made it back to the Underground. The snakes were lined up at the entrance to check everyone who came through the entrance, taking stock of what they had brought with them. When Erwin and Levi walked up with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a human book, they barely gave a second glance. Zackly, on the other hand, turned his head and started to slither down the tunnel side by side with Erwin.

“Did anyone get hurt?” he asked.

“Not this time, thankfully,” Erwin said. He didn’t stop walking.

“And thisss one?” he asked, pointing his forked tongue at Levi.

“He did well.”

“I didn’t do a thing,” said Levi and Erwin only shrugged.

“What can thissss log tell usss?”

“It can tell us when the next hunt will be.”

“Do the humans always hunt as a pack?” asked Levi.

“No. There are traps and children with sticks and dogs running through the woods every day. The hares are in constant danger of snares.”

The three came out on the top level of the Underground. Snakes and badgers were curled up in little alcoves on bedrolls. The badgers seemed to sweat under their fur, but the snakes were tangling themselves in one another trying to get warm.

“I leave you here,” Zackly said. He turned and slithered to his own bed. Levi and Erwin made the long trek down and down and down into the caves until they came to their respective camps.

“Now what?” Levi said.

“The other stoats don’t welcome you, do they,” Erwin said.

“So?”

“I’ve spoken to Zackly and Nanaba about it. The three of you can move into the Weasel camp if you prefer. Either way, you and your friends must come on missions with us. Refuse, and you won’t spend another night here.”

Levi considered his words, but his tone had allowed no argument. Levi shrugged. When he stopped walking at the edge of the Stoat camp, Erwin paused, not looking at him.

“By the way, Levi. You shouldn’t sell out your team mates to a dog to buy yourself time.” He kept walking. Levi did not move until Magnolia and Farlan came to his side, arms laden with food.

“Mike and Hange said we could keep it!”

“Everything we took!”

“Look! I swiped some almond cheese, you want some?”

Levi forced a smile and took it.

“Magnolia, Farlan. If anyone gives you trouble, tell me, alright? We will leave.”

“And go where?” Farlan asked.

“I’m not sure yet.”

 

When the next mission came, Levi followed Erwin into another house to steal food. By the fourth mission, he knew what to expect. On their seventh mission together, it was the night before a human celebration called Christmas and they had locked their doors tight and gone to bed early. “No one will be awake, it’s amazing!” Hange said. “The world is so quiet when all the humans are asleep, no lights at all—they even douse the street lamps!” It was true too. Without the lights in the streets—save one or two candles flickering in a window under a branch of holly, the stars could be seen. The forest was still—most of the animals hibernating or hiding. The snakes had sequestered themselves in little hovels in the walls of the Underground and had not been seen since the start of winter. The different teams split up to search for dog doors, holes in the floor or unlocked windows. Marie circled three houses before she found one with an unlocked cellar.

“The lock has rusted off, rusted off.”

“Lucky us,” Levi muttered. He knew that this house had dogs in it. Somehow, he and Erwin had avoided dogs since his first mission and he wondered if Erwin had anything to do with that.

“Can you handle this?” Erwin asked him.

“Yes, Erwin, I can handle a dog, or two,” Levi quipped.

“We can move on—”

Erwin definitely had something to do with it. “Just open the cellar.”

It was much too dark inside—not a single thing could be seen clearly. All sorts of shapes fluttered through Levi’s vision and he held up his paws, constantly thinking there was something in front of him when there was nothing. He had a general idea of where the food was by its smell…

“There’s so much of it,” he whispered.

“That’s what Christmas means to humans,” Erwin explained, “it’s a celebration of giving and warmth.”

“And food?”

“Lots of it.” Behind them, Marie was crawling on all paws, gently nudging their feet to keep them walking straight.

“Beware, beware!” she hissed. Even in her quietest whisper, her voice screeched and Levi felt his hair stand on end, thinking of the dogs that were undoubtedly sleeping somewhere in the room. Erwin had told him to ignore anything sitting on the tables and take any bread he found in the pantry.

They split up and he could hear Marie’s quick breath sucking cold air into her tiny lungs, her pulse racing a mile a minute. After shambling through the dark she shoved her head against his side and pushed him down. He tried to make no sound and shut his eyes, waiting for something to happen. He could hear her scuttle over the floor. When she came back, there was something in her mouth and she gently set it down beside Levi’s paw. He picked it up. It felt like ice, but it did not melt. It was glass, a broken shard among many.

“Beware, beware,” Marie hissed. Levi held the shard of glass in his hand. It smelled like wine and he figured a bottle must have broken somewhere close by. He tucked the glass shard into a pocket inside his cloak.

Eventually, he bumped into a tiny pantry with leftover loaves of bread inside. Some burnt, but most were simply cold from sitting in the dark for so long. He sniffed them for mold and, finding them acceptably clean, broke them into chunks and fit them into his bag. Locating Erwin again was not difficult and, with Marie’s help, they made it back out the door, the sound of dogs’ gently snoring far behind them.

 

The rest of the mission went by without a problem. In the handful of missions Levi had been on, there had been several casualties, some involving humans, others involving traps. Whenever a dog was directly involved, the victim never lived. Because of her mange, which she was recovering beautifully from, Magnolia had been excused from further missions until Spring, which Levi was secretly very grateful for. At the entrance of the Undeground, it was not Zackly that approached them, but Nanaba. Wrapped up in cloth blankets under shelter were a handful of tiny creatures that barely came up to Nanaba’s hip.

“Who are these beasts?” Erwin asked.

“They arrived while you were gone,” said Nanaba. “Half starved; their homeless.”

Levi stared at them: a mouse, a mole, and another stoat like him. “They would have walked into that death trap of a human settlement if they hadn’t seen you.”

“What do the adders think?” Erwin asked.

“They feel we have too many to feed as it is,” Nanaba said coldly.

“Regardless,” Erwin replied, “They can stay until summer, at least.”

“I don’t see why not,” said Nanaba, though it was clear by her tone that she did not want to argue with Sanes or any of his snake-advisors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regular updates resume Wednesday.
> 
> Thank you for commenting or leaving kudos, I really do appreciate it!


	7. Levi's Log: The Snatcher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi reminisces about how he met some of his friends...

The hunt that winter came and went. With the human’s log in the Underground, we knew what days the humans were planning to get all their resources together and go into the forest looking for more animals to kill. We kept everyone inside—it wasn’t even crowded back then. The next hunt, the afternoon before the first day of spring was just the same, but at the time, the snakes were still unsure of the success of our missions. One morning, we came home after a number of dogs had gotten loose somehow. We lost two beasts and half of the rest of us were hurt, the majority of the food we swiped lost.

At the time, there were only a few teams that would go out in the middle of the night, but in the last days of the Underground, there were several volunteers. The most promising became members of Erwin’s reconnaissance group. The bats were always there at night to scout ahead and track our progress, and birds were there for missions we could only have done during the day.

Mikasa, the stoat Nanaba had rescued alongside the mole and mouse, was incredibly promising, if headstrong. However, she tried to talk the other two out of it for a long time before they tried to sneak away from her and come on missions on their own. When Magnolia’s mange had cleared up, she fell in love with them. The mouse, Eren, is too irritating to describe, so I told her that she could play with it as long as she stayed in the courtyard with him. He could usually be found with the mole, Armin, and Mikasa follows behind them. The three of them are inseperable—I think that’s how you spell that—and they refused to be separated into different camps, so they usually stayed with the moles. I could understand: Farlan stayed in the stoat camp with us up until the very end.

Several times I suggested to him that we could move to the weasel camp but the thought of being surrounded by even bigger animals made him uncomfortable. Ridiculous, I thought, since he went out at night to steal food from under dog’s noses.

In the end, it hardly mattered, because similar circumstances were happening all through the Underground. So many woodlanders travelling in groups of two or three or sometimes families of five or more would usually have a beast of a different breed with them. I remember when Magnolia pointed out to me that the different camps could overlap since the snakes and badgers already lived together on the top level. I wondered if they had set it up that way to encourage us to bring the different camps together, but now I’m not so sure. I think it was safer for everyone for the snakes to be up there, under the badger’s supervision.

I think it was Armin’s idea to bring the younger ones together. It took some coaxing, but eventually you could hear the courtyard bustling with them; babes from all camps playing with each other. All camps, except for the foxes. Somehow, Eren befriended Bertl and Reiner, and I remember seeing Armin talking to Annie several times, but they never left their camp. The foxes had never once joined us on a mission to steal food; they went solo to forage in the woods for other things. Erwin did not seem to mind. They were all trained healers and they shared their medicines at any hour of the day or night. They just did not go into the human village.

“The foxes have the most to lose,” Erwin explained to me at some point. “Most of these hunts are targeted exclusively at them, especially at the end of summer.”

I can still remember the grin on Erwin’s face when I asked him if we were the Snatcher that the humans were starting to get more and more worked up about.

“About that,” he said, and he pulled out this other book from his pack, but it was small. He said it was made that way so that humans could carry it around in their pockets. This one had a painting on the front and he must have seen some emotion on my face because he let me hold it. I flipped through the pages for a second, but I couldn’t hide that I didn’t know how to read after my outburst on our first mission. He said I could keep it and bring it by him whenever I wanted. That was when he started teaching me how to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	8. Carrot-Candles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Underground isn't big enough for the-one, two, three... SEVEN of us!

Eren did not always pause in the middle of a bite to say something, but the shock of seeing Levi walk by with a pad and pen distracted him from eating.

“Is he learning to write?” he said to the crowd at table.

“I think so,” Sasha cut in, staring at Levi’s back while he walked away. He glanced at her and she turned back to Eren, pressing her long ears against her head. “He knows how to read now, anyway.”

“What does that matter?” Eren said. “You can teach someone how to write before they learn how to read.”

“No, you can’t,” Mikasa said gently. She was unusually reserved and quiet for a stoat, so the but she was also full of jokes and advice so the others listened to her when she spoke.

“Why not?”

“If you’re writing down letters without knowing their meaning, then you are just making lines on paper.”

“Or copying something else,” Armin added, his mole speech a little hard to decipher with his mouth full. “Like copying one of Bertl’s illusion paintings when you can’t tell what it is.”

“Those things give me the willies,” Sasha added.

At the other end of the table, Connie chewed and swallowed before he said anything. He had been outright rejected from the rat community for being too clumsy, but being adopted and raised by a hedgehog had estranged him from other rats anyway.

“They only look spooky if you don’t know what they mean,” he said. “Then you look closer and you see bees or horses or something.”

“No, no,” Sasha replied. “They are spooky anyway.”

“Until he paints a carrot into one,” Mikasa said. There were a few chuckles in response.

“I swiped a candle instead of food one time. It was my first mission! I didn’t know what a human sized candle looked like!”

“We know,” Eren said. “But you might have at least made sure it wasn’t a candle before you bit into it expecting a vegetable!”

The picnic table the group had set up was in an empty corner of the square that no other camp was using yet. To everyone else, it was assumed that the band of young’uns would eventually make their own bedrooms and live there permanently.

“Is he actually living with the weasels, or…?” Hitch asked. She twitched her nose, looking from face to face for an answer.

“Of course not,” Mikasa said.

“I’d think it’d be too risky for a stoat to stay with the weasels,” said Armin. “There’s so much arguing between them.”

“I wonder why… Oh! He can stay with us,” Hitch suggested.

“Are you just saying that so he’ll clean up your messes?” Marlowe asked. His weapon was trapped under his foot paw, and he rolled it around the floor, wiggling his ears with a grin underneath.

“No, no, no,” she said. “I’ve been thinking, he’s handy. He’s not a thief anymore, or at least he’s not against us. And Magnolia and especially Farlan too, they’re not bad. We’ve already made a camp on our own, why not let others in?”

There were some awkward looks passed around the table.

“The thing is,” Eren said gently, “he’s really Erwin’s beast, and whatever Levi does Magnolia and Farlan go with him.” Hitch shrugged.

“I just mean I’d think they’d be welcome here if that’s what they wanted to do.”

“I agree,” Marlowe said. After a minute, Armin nodded and Mikasa too.

“I don’t know…” Connie mumbled.

“Connie, what problem could you possibly have with Levi?” Sasha almost shouted.

“It’s not a problem with Levi at all, actually. But it doesn’t feel good being kicked out by your own kind. If Levi wanted to stay with us, I would think that having no place else would be the reason.”

“That’s awful grim, Connie,” Armin muttered.

“That’s what I’m trying to say!” Hitch countered. “None of us belong to any one camp, we belong to each other! And everyone knows it!”

The others looked at each other one by one. It was something they all knew, in a way, but it was enlightening to hear it said out loud.

“When you put it that way, how can we turn anyone away?” Eren said.

“What about the foxes?” Mikasa added, just to voice the question.

“They’re pretty antisocial,” Eren said, chewing on his lip. “But… I guess…”

“The problem is, they don’t ever leave their camp, so we don’t know much about them,” Armin said innocuously. “They’re healing skills would be wonderful to have.”

“Aye,” Sasha said. “And if Bertl stayed here, I could give him some real art advice!”

“No, you couldn’t!” Marlowe said. Mikasa glared at him and his grin disappeared. “Maybe you could give him a few pointers. Or some inspiration.”

“Like carrot-candles?”

“Eren, hush,” Sasha said, but she was grinning a little as well.

“So… you all really feel like we’re our own camp?” Armin said. Everyone nodded. “To be honest, I feel the same way. What if we really made it official?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, ask the adders if we can make our own camp.”

“Wouldn’t we have to wait weeks for the mole camp to dig us a cave?” Marlowe asked.

“I don’t see why we can’t just put up our own tents here,” Armin said.

“I ssssee a reassson.” Everyone at the table jumped and looked up. Sanes was sitting right above them, his body curled up on itself. Clearly, he had been there for a while.

“And… what reason would that be?” Armin choked. All beasts that walked the earth’s surface were afraid of snakes. Living with them did not make things easier. Even the badgers were afraid, though their strength and size made a fight between them even.

“What happensss when othersssss want to join your camp? You will grow and invade the entire sssquare.”

“So…” Eren said, “You don’t really have a problem with us being our own camp, just where we put it?”

“Yessss. Make a proposssition for a new home and we will consssssider it.” Sanes slithered away.

“Is everything alright over here?” The table of beasts collectively twitched again and turned their attention to the new speaker, Levi.

“He’s harmless,” Eren said boldly. He wondered if Levi’s presence had been the reason Sanes had left.

“He wants the moles to dig a cave for us,” Mikasa said.

“That’s an odd way to interpret what he said,” Hitch added.

“How else would you interpret it?” Marlowe asked. “He said we need to come up with some other place to sleep besides right here and there is nowhere else.”

“I don’t see why it matters to him,” Sasha asked. “All the way up on his ledge. It’s not like he does anything but hiss.” Levi’s brow furrowed.

“You have a point,” he said. “You’re not wrong. Give your ideas to one of the badgers instead, they’ll hear you out.”

“Maybe I could just dig a hole here by myself,” Armin said.

“Why do you want to live over here, anyway?” Levi said.

No one had an answer for that. The group was, beyond anything else, leaderless. During missions, they were divided into teams with more experienced veterans as their captains. But missions were usually once every other full moon, if it could be managed. Lately, Erwin had been pushing for a mission every month, possibly more, since they had been going so well. The snakes were avidly opposed to the idea, but for what reason, not Eren or any of his friends could guess.

In between missions, they kept to themselves, frequently getting together for meals and sometimes staying together late at night to share songs or riddles. Sasha did, in fact, have a knack for sketching. A game they played was to give her the name of something just to see how fast she could draw it. They played, fought amongst themselves, made up, and ate. It had been that way for months without any guardian’s supervision for any of them. Their captains were not their parents and as long as everyone was safe in the Underground, there was nothing to do or think about.

Levi could sense all of this. In truth, he knew a lot about them by now, not just from watching them on missions, but by what Magnolia told him. She was not a part of this would-be camp, but she frequented their riddle sessions often enough to be welcome without question. He and Farlan, on the other hand, were a different story.

“What all do we need to make a camp?” Eren suggested, moving on from Levi’s question in a second.

“You need to be able to provide something. The foxes offer healers, the hares offer archers, something like that.”

“We can offer art!” Sasha joked, and everyone laughed.

“You can offer records,” Levi said. Everyone fell silent.

“What?”

“All of you can act as recorders for the different camps. Can you all write?”

“Most of us,” Sasha said.

“Who can’t write?” Levi asked evenly. No one answered that question. He sighed through his nose, but kept going. “There are no camps here that offer record keeping. Some might keep journals, but they are personal. There are enough of you here that you can even act as messengers if that makes more sense to you. Just think about it.” He turned to walk away, but Hitch called after him.

“You want to stay with us? Maybe you can offer writing lessons!” Levi stopped. He looked over his shoulder and considered her.

“I’ll think about it, thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It probably goes without saying that this chapter is meant to establish the Underground as a real place of living, and not just this big ugly hole in the ground where a ton of animals go to hide. It's not like the Underground in SNK-canon, it's more like Trost.  
> Although, now that I mention it like that, I should have talked more about what the place actually looks like... or smells like.


	9. Levi's Log: Riddles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something's going down in the fox camp. Can Levi figure this one out?

 I can still remember the last thing any of the foxes said to me. Our bellies were full from the feast earlier, for the winter solstice. The hares were in their huts with their own fires and beds, the moles in their caves, and the foxes had all crawled away somewhere to sleep. The roots of grass and trees were pushing through the earth, making the roof of their shelter of the misfit camp- that's what the adders called it- more stable. We Once Petra had roped the others in her team to joining the camp of misfits in their grotto, Magnolia, Farlan and I spent a lot of time there. Occasionally, Erwin and his team would join us and he would stay with everyone long after his close friends had left.

“I’ve got a riddle for you all,” Petra said. “I am a star with wings. What am I?”

“Oh, that’s a tough one…” replied Erwin. He was sitting with us stoats and other beasts instead of with his weasel kin and even now I can’t imagine why. With Oluo, Petra, Mikasa, Magnolia, Eld, Gunther, and myself, the majority of the camp was stoats.

“A firefly,” Farlan says. “I told you that one.”

“Then you should have kept the answer to yourself!” Magnolia whined.

“Here’s one. I am a light that never moves. What am I?” There was silence for a while. I was resting my eyes, not even trying to think of an answer, but Erwin was thinking it over, same as everyone else.

“Um. A window?” Oluo said.

“Yup!” Magnolia chirped.

“We need to have more of those down here,” Petra joked. Gunther snored a little and she giggled. “Who else is asleep? I can go all night!”

“Then please do,” said Erwin.

“I am a carpet that can grow. What am I?”

“Grass,” Farlan said. “Another easy one.”

“Hush up, you,” Eld cut in. “I am a cup that you cannot drink out of. What am I?”

“A buttercup,” too many of us said at once.

“Alright, alright. Farlan, you tell one.”

“Fine. I was not written, yet I am read. I am a map, yet I show no roads. What am I?”

There was a second of hesitation where I let everyone else think about it, but the answer was obvious to me. “The stars,” I said and Farlan smiled at me.

“You’re turn.”

“Fine,” I say, sitting up. “I’ve got a winner. I am a rock that floats. What am I?”

There were several guesses, none of them correct.

“A mountain,” Erwin says.

“Yes.”

"How does a mountain float?" Farlan asked.

"Well, it can't sink, now can it?" Eld replied.

“Oh, good one!” Magnolia said, applauding.

“I’ve got a real challenge for you,” Berthold had wandered into the firelight, his red fur like a glowing ember and casting an orange hue over our white winter coats. It was difficult to look directly at one another in the bright firelight and the fox was almost invisible in comparison. It was disturbing. No fox had left their camp to join anothers' before, even for a minute.

“I am not a friend, but you always give me gifts. What am I?” he said.

There was a long moment of silence.

“A thief,” I answered.

“Correct.” Berthold said nothing else. He sat down for a while though, listening to the riddles being passed around until late into the morning. All the while I could see him watching me, his eyes burning with some message I couldn’t read. By the time everyone else was snoring, Erwin included, Berthold stood and started to leave.

“Fox,” I called. He stopped. “That was a good riddle. You should think of some more.”

“I do have more,” he said, turning back to me. “I do not speak, yet you always hear me coming. What am I?”

“Thunder?” I guessed.

“No. Try again.”

“I give up.” I laid back down and shut my eyes.

“You cannot give up, Levi. You can’t.”

“It’s just a riddle,” I said, already yawning. “What’s the answer?”

“You have to know, Levi, you have to figure it out.” He sounded so serious.

“Fine. I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

“You might not have tomorrow.” By that point, I’m so drowsy I’m not sure I even heard him.

“What was that?” I mutter, half asleep. But he’s gone, back to the fox camp and away from me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	10. Damage Report

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The following is a collection of reports made of the Fall of the Underground.  
>  -Historia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters this time, so they're here a little early. Enjoy!

Hange’s Journal

“…which was always a problem to begin with. I don’t know how a stoat could be so small as Levi or a weasel as big as Erwin, but now it seems that everyone—especially the little ones that have not seen stoats or weasels before— believe that this size difference is normal. It is not, stoats are always somewhat bigger. Back to what I was saying before, I do not know what possessed the foxes to abandon the Underground the night before a hunt. Nanaba had warned everyone to stay in the cave—even the scouts are not allowed outside before a hunt for our own safety. Bertl—I’ve said this before, but that can’t be his real name—was becoming so friendly too, I thought he might be the first fox-scout. It was not to be, apparently. He left the Underground with the others. No one saw them leave—not even the bats heard them—which leads me to believe they had a tunnel hidden in their camp all along! Extraordinary.

Rico—I have not talked of her before, she is always busy with something just when I go to speak with her— stood at the gate with the other badgers when the dogs came. They were—the dogs, that is—going mad on the trail of the foxes. The badgers were prepared to throw off the scent if need be. The snakes came deeper into the Underground, their cold blood unable to withstand the ice and snow outside. Mike and Erwin were the first to act, insisting that they join the badgers outside, ready to run. With only a little trepidation, the other scouts and myself grouped together to do the same. Those dogs must have had incredible scent, however, seeing as they began to dig right over our heads.

And dig and dig and dig. A mile away, some of them had run off to block the back entrance. There is some speculation that the foxes must have told the dogs about it, because otherwise, how could they find it? It is an interesting suggestion, however I do not think the foxes started this madness. I think so because they had just as much to gain by staying in the shelter of the Underground than fleeing to some other pasture. Besides, I believe dogs just have good noses, which leads me to another point…”

 

Mike’s Report

“Dogs. Lots of them. And not many places to hide, really, especially with so many good beasts panicking at once. Do I blame the foxes for this? Absolutely. They would not have needed to communicate at all with the human’s pets for them to find us: one good whiff of their scent from a mile off would do. And the way they left the very night before the Underground was decimated is a puzzle. Where are they now? Are they all dead? Where on Earth would they go?”

 

Levi’s Log

“Levi, do you hear that?” It was Farlan, shaking me awake.

“Hmm?” I replied. I had hoped I was dreaming, or I else I would flail him for waking me up so early. But off in the distance, I could hear commotion in the hare’s camp. They were closest to the foxes and I wondered if they had made a disturbance with their bonfire rituals again.

“Bother, what are you talking about?”

“There’s something up above us, Levi,” Farlan said.

Fires were being lit all around the Underground. Some moles and squirrels had climbed up as close as they dared to the roof, pricking their ears to hear things I could not. To my left, Erwin’s hulking mass was sitting up straight and watching the ceiling. As more fires came to life, it became increasingly clear that the ceiling of tangled roots was quivering, showering us in tiny motes of earth.

“Something big is up there,” Erwin said.

“Yeah, like what?” I say.

“THE FOXES ARE GONE!” someone shouted.

“Oh,” Farlan sighed. “Must be them.”

“No, something bigger is up there,” Erwin argued.

“Like what?” I said again, this time it was a question. He did not look at me right away. After a few more seconds, I could hear something that sounded like very heavy footfalls above us—lots of them. We had about thirty minutes to figure out what was happening before…

Erwin’s Log

• The humans had made a circle through the forest on horseback, following their hunting dogs. At this time of year, any rabbits, stoats, or foxes in their path would have been tracked down.

• The dogs passed over the Underground once without noticing us—as usual, but Mike insists it is unlikely that they have not noticed our numbers before—but after a half hour circled back and led their humans to the Underground once again.

• They began to dig. A panic arose and several beasts ran to different exits to escape the dogs.

• None of the dogs attacked, however the bottleneck that the tunnels made were convenient for the humans to use to their advantage.

The commotion was heard throughout the treetops and various winged creatures who watch over us during a hunt were an invaluable help, distracting horses and carrying us into trees. The scouts were impossibly courageous and by far suffered the worst. The bats had spread out looking for help and returned with more great birds, some of whom in turn were shot down.

I have never seen the forest from above until now. Funny, it was hard to enjoy with so much going on. It was a Golden Eagle who carried me into a tree away from two dogs who had me cornered. I insisted on going back down and she took me back into the fray. We scouts were distracting some horsemen so that others might escape, but it seems very, very few of the hunted who were not taken to the trees survived. Myself and other weasels, and the mice, and moles were not of the hunted, however many were trampled all the same.

The snakes were Underground when the ceiling collapsed and are presumed dead. The foxes are missing. A few are unconscious and have not woken yet.

I will attempt to make a list of the deceased—the identified ones— here and add to it as we learn more.

• Badgers- Nanaba and Rico

• Rat- Isle

• Horned Lark- Mitabi

• Warbler- Anka

• Stoats- Petra and Oluo and Erd and Gunter

• …


	11. Historia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's like the fall of Rose, but on a much smaller scale...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The moment all the readers have been waiting for I'm sure... after this we'll get on to the actual TRAVELLING part.

When the cold froze the landscape, the insects moved to where it was warm.

“There’s not as many flies as in summer, but how do so many survive the winter?” Jean said dismissively, flicking his tail at the buzzing bugs.

“It’s all the hot air in your head, I think,” Marco said.

“Funny,” Jean quipped. Then; “Say, do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

The pony and work horse were suck in the stable but could see the hunt in the horizon through the open windows, the sounds of it a dull whisper now. “I think the dogs are coming back around,” said Jean, his eyes staring at the shadow of other horses and their riders.

“Why?”

“I don’t know; that’s just what it sounds like.” They sat in quiet for a while before Marco changed the subject, though he never looked away from the line of trees where the riders were.

“How’s she doing?” was all he said.

“She’s coming along,” Jean replied. “She still trembles a bit but her seat is much better.”

“Think she’ll ever want to hunt?” Marco asked, as a joke.

“You mean, will she ever get over her fear of animals? Doubtful. The farmer’s daughter is as shy as shadows at noon.”

Marco’s ears pricked upright: “You know what? I think they are coming back.” The dogs were miles off now, already lost in the line of trees, but their barking was significantly louder to the horses’ ears. Suddenly, the riders made a sharp left over the hill and down, out of sight, making a beeline for one spot.

Jean felt his throat tighten. “Oh no…”

“When I kick the door down,” Marco said, “You go get Historia and tell her the Underground needs help!”

“What?” cried Jean, “She might have flown South already.”

“Then round up everyone you can!”

“What will you do?”

“I’m going to stop those horses from crushing anyone…”

There were only strings of rope dividing the horses from the exit, but the bolt on the heavy door was a different problem. Marco put all his weight into his kicks until it trembled, quaked, and eventually broke down. Jean hurried out the door and went North over the fields.

The Golden Eagle, Historia. Those in the Underground did not know her, but per a humble request from another bird, she had once agreed to keep an eye on the Underground for their protection. It had been rumored that she appreciated so many different creatures living peacefully together and she would come to their aid if need be. It was time to see if the rumors were true.

 

Marco’s massive hooves kicked up chunks of snow leaving piles of muddy slush in his wake. A few of the horses steered their riders out of his way while he charged over the hill. The Underground had definitely been found, for the first time in years. Pictures of the beasts whom he had met floated through his mind and he felt that time was slowing down.

The dogs were split up between the main entrance and exit, almost a mile apart from each other. In the meantime, other beasts were escaping through the different tunnels in between.

 _“They’ll be caught!”_ Marco thought. He reared his head back and called up to the trees, a terrible, pained whinny from deep in his throat that startled some ignorant birds in the roof of foliage.

“Woah,” some human called. “How did he get out here?” The horse she was riding said; “Marco? What are you doing?”

“TELL THE DOGS TO STOP DIGGING!”

“What?”

“JUST TELL THEM TO STOP, ALREADY!”

A beagle stepped up to Marco’s hooves. “What’s’a matter?”

Marco looked down at it, pleading. “This is the Underground, you have found it.”

“Really? So close by, all this time?” the beagle said, and even the other horses looked surprised.

“Yes, and you need to stop digging! There are hundreds of animals down there, all their families, you are scaring them!” The dog did not look disturbed at all, in fact, it looked elated. The horses merely stood by, glancing nervously at their riders’ crops and spurs.

“Is that right?” the beagle asked.

“Yes?” Marco replied slowly. The dog looked around at the mob of humans and their pets. All at once, it seemed that hundreds of tiny field mice burst from a hole in the ground and scattered. They were disinteresting, but the rats were another story: when one or two or three popped out of the ground, a dog was instantly chasing it down, just for sport.

“I don’t know why you care about them,” said the Beagle. “But the way I see it, the more beasts my human catches, the more meat I get. He’s been starving me all autumn just for this, and I’m going to get my reward!”

“This can’t be…” Marco whispered, panic setting in. He looked to a much bigger dog passing by; “You! How did you find this place?”

“The fox trail went cold about two miles south of here, we doubled back and found this spot!” with that, it bounded off to join in the digging.

The dogs could not accomplish much by themselves with their tiny paws on frozen Earth, but Marco could only imagine what the damage looked like down below: all the commotion aboveground probably felt like an earthquake to the creatures underground.

“MARCO!”

He looked beneath himself and saw Rico’s head poke out of the entrance. No dogs dared run underneath the massive horse to reach her.

“You stay right where you are,” she said. “Do not move, understand?”

“Yes, I do,” he replied. She disappeared for a moment, and then each of the badgers all rushed out together, weaving between his hooves. They wielded clubs or slingshots while they screamed, distracting the dogs.

 _“Looks like they were prepared,”_ he thought bitterly.

“Marco!” someone else called from the ground. He looked down again and saw Erwin. “Can you get some creatures on your back?”

Marco knelt down and allowed as many hares, stoats, and weasels as could fit onto his back. “Aren’t you coming?” he asked Erwin.

“No, I’m staying here. Take them someplace safe and come back for more.”

Once Marco was gone, Erwin padded back down the tunnel entrance to the group of animals waiting for him.

“Marco is gone, so we don’t have much time. Scouts? You stay here and protect this group. When he comes back, help them onto his back. Now, my volunteers come with me!”

A gaggle of beasts wielding spears and knives followed him back up to the entrance.

“You don’t need to fight the dogs,” Erwin reminded everyone, “just distract them!”

“I’d kill every one of them if I could,” Eren muttered, and Mikasa gave him a good kick in response.

“Where should we run too?” Eld asked.

“Er… all the hunters are in the woods,” Armin suggested. “So perhaps we can run to the village.” He was sitting on Connie’s shoulder: his tiny legs were just too short to run over the snow in.

“It’s always been easier to hide there, anyway,” Petra added.

“Just be extra careful,” Erwin said. “They’ll be looking for you stoats especially, with the foxes gone.”

Levi clutched a hand around his fur. The black spot on the end of his tail was like a target for the dogs to follow. He glanced around at the other stoats. Magnolia looked ready to pounce, but underneath her smile she was shaking. He squeezed her paw once. She bounced from foot to foot, waiting for Erwin’s signal.

 

Hange could not see a thing. The entire camp had stampeded to the tunnel leading outside. They were only supposed to use them during emergencies, and if they had waited any longer, the roof would have collapsed on them. Other camps were more stable, but the mouse camp was full of scaffoldings and hanging houses. In the rush to leave, Hange tripped in the snow, her glasses flung far away.

“Need these?” a small voice chirped.

“Thanks,” Hange said, reaching for her glasses. “Your Pixis’ bird, right?”

“Yes,” said Anka. “More birds are coming. Would you like a lift into the trees?”

“Worry about someone else, I’ve got to find the other scouts!” Hange was gone in a heartbeat leaving a bewildered Anka in the snow.

 

Ian had told Farlan once that if anything went wrong, he should go looking for him. Farlan did not know why, but he went into the woods looking for him all the same, a few dogs chasing him down before they realized his bright fur was that of a squirrel and not a fox.

“Farlan!” Ian shouted. He had crossed a frozen pond, a handful of dogs limping or unconscious in a circle around him. “You see that small pine tree, over there? There are some supplies up in the branches, see if you can get them!” The big badger spun around and followed the others through the woods. Farlan tossed his weapon over his shoulder and bounded up the tree.

“Oh, yes!” he said out loud when he found the little nook between a few branches. Tucked away where the snow could not reach in blankets to keep warm were bags of seeds and shovels and trowels and other things of that nature, but what caught his eye were the weapons. A few strong bows and quivers with arrows were tucked around maces and swords. Real swords!

Taking a bow and two quivers, he climbed higher through the branches, nocked an arrow to the string and took aim.

One, two, three direct hits!

“Want some help?” Farlan jumped at the sound of a horned lark sitting next to him.

“Mitabi! Yeah, I’d love some. I can’t see all the action from here.”

“Can’t just run through the branches?”

Farlan blushed. “I’m, uh… out of practice.”

“I’ll try to find Hugo and we can carry you over, if I can figure out where he went… In the meantime, I’ll tell the others to have the dogs run underneath you!”

“You do that…” Farlan said, taking aim once again. Mitabi flew off and for a while, Farlan heardn nothing else from above him until a wild screech made him jump. He looked up.

 _“A hawk?”_ he thought. _“No… that’s an eagle!”_ He craned to get a better look, but the shift in weight on the icy branch made him slip. He reached out for a branch that was not there and fell down, down, down, then everything went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	12. Nests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Looks like everyone is stuck up a tree...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this crazy crossover, it really is insane.

Levi stayed by Farlan’s side while he was asleep. Magnolia tried to sit still but was too restless and went to get water or damp rags for Farlan’s head or extra blankets. Eventually she settled down in a depressed huff and sat curled up in a ball in the corner of the nest.

As scouts, they were updated on the fate of what remained of the Underground. Erwin was not the leader, not technically, but he had opinions and put his foot down where he thought necessary. Many beasts wanted Historia to be the leader; something like a queen, but she refused. Instead, she offered them a new place to live, someplace called Redwall.

“That’s a long way to travel,” Ian groaned when she explained it took half a season to fly there. With the snakes gone and the other badgers buried, he was leader by default. “On foot, over the mountains, it might take us a year.”

“Is there anyone here that would know how to get there?” Armin asked. He picked at his digging claws like other moles itching to feel earth under their paws again; so many of them had gotten used to digging, digging, digging all day. Armin was not meant to be a scout.

“Maybe one of Levi’s friends?” Hange proposed. “They came from the mountain, didn’t they?”

“Or someplace close to it,” Erwin said.

“Why don’t you talk to him?” Ian asked.

“I can try. He hasn’t said anything since Farlan was knocked out—”

“He’s awake!” Magnolia was bounding towards them between branches as best she could. A family of mice hiding in the hole of a birch tree woke up and grumbled their discomfort with her shouting. “Farlan’s up, he’s awake!”

Sasha had been loitering around the nest that was carrying a hand full of other injured beasts, waiting for Farlan to wake up. When he finally, he talked with Levi for a while and after Levi ran off to find him something to eat, she moved closer.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Bad.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure, I’m sure. I just wanted to ask where you learned to shoot a bow like that?”

His eyes squinted when he looked at her. “All squirrels can shoot.”

“If that were true, the hares in my old burrow would not have needed to learn how themselves!”

Levi reappeared with some soft bread and spoke to Farlan. “She’s not bothering you, is she?”

“No,” he replied. “Just asking silly questions.”

“Oh, you’ve not got a headache, have you?”

“Starting to.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said. “Just wait until Erwin starts asking you silly questions!”

Levi looked up at her. “What do you mean?”

Sasha’s long ears wiggled. “I can hear them talking is all. They want to ask if you know a path over the mountain.” Farlan looked shaken.

“Why would we need to go there?”

“Redwall,” she said, the intrigue in her voice betraying how much she liked the sound of it.

“Never heard of it,” Levi said, as though he were answering for both of them.

“It’s a place like the Underground, but it’s aboveground! It’s a whole castle carved of red stone where all sorts of beasts go to rest.”

“And it’s over the mountain?” Levi asked. Farlan did not look up at him when he answered;

“Yes. It is. I know all about it, Levi, I do. They won’t take us, though.”

“I see,” Levi said slowly.

“Now hold on,” Sasha said, “I do not see! Don’t pretend like that’s the matter settled, tell me more, Farlan!”

“They don’t accept just any beast, only the woodland folk. Most of them are just passing through, anyhow. It’s big place, yes, but they won’t let a lot of weasels and stoats and washed up hares and mice live there.”

“Now, now,” Sasha said. “There’s enough of that kind of talk. Historia thinks we’ll fit in just fine. She’ll fly ahead and tell them we’re coming. And then there’s Nile and all the other bats that are out of a home for a while too, they’re looking for greener pastures like us, what with half their cave filled in after all that digging and stomping the humans did. They can fly ahead too and give everyone a report. We’ve got the skies and you’ve got the brains. I’d say it’s our best bet, this early in the winter.”

“We can’t go far without food,” Levi countered.

“If you’d been coming to the scout meetings, you’d know we already have a way to fix that. Didn’t Hange tell you?”

Levi withdrew slightly, sheepish. “Probably. I wasn’t listening.”

“Marco and Jean are going to help us with gettin’ food.”

“I thought they would be tied up after they both ran out of the barn…”

“No, the stable boy was blamed for all that! The horses are still free to come and go so long as the family’s at home. Both of them can jump the fence alright.”

Levi tossed the idea over in his mind: moving hundreds of animals across the valley in the dead of winter relying on the spare provisions of one human household to get them through it. They would only be halfway to the mountain by spring, but by that point the forest would be in bloom and they could restock. That was risky, and even under the best circumstances many would not make it. The alternative was to look for shelter and hide from the humans until spring, but then what?

“What does Ian say?” Levi asked.

“Not much. He’s doing his royal best, but losing his friends has left him pretty low. You know about that, I know. You’ve hardly spoken and I don’t blame you. Now isn’t the time to use your strength in fighting, we just need strong brains.” Levi sighed. Perhaps sitting with Farlan all this time instead of contributing to a solution had been selfish, but the desire to sit still had been worth more than all the words he could ever speak again.

“Have you really just been sitting here this whole time?” Farlan asked.

“I never left your side.”

Farlan shook his head. “And what does Erwin think of that?”

“What does that matter? Besides he thinks it’s just fine.”

“You two are practically a team, more so than you are with me and Mags, more so than you were with the other stoats.” Levi swallowed. As expeditions had moved forward, he had become the leader of a little band of stoats: Petra, Erd, Oluo, and Gunter. They were all buried now.

“He said I should stay here.”

Farlan shrugged. “Alright, if he says he doesn’t need you.”

 

That night, Levi went looking for Erwin after Farlan and Magnolia fell asleep.

“How is he doing?” Erwin asked.

“He’s better. Sore head, but he’ll live. What is it you want him to do, exactly?”

“If, and only if, he’s heard of Redwall—”

“He has.”

“Oh. Alright then,” replied Erwin. “In that case…”

“What?”

“Well… I didn’t think anyone around here had heard of it. Historia seemed to think the Underground would be a safe place because it was technically a cave hidden underground, but after some thought, Redwall is tucked in a valley where there are no humans.”

Levi paused and thought about that. “Really? Well, as nice as that sounds, how would we even get everyone over the mountain and into that valley?”

“That’s the question. We may need to split up.”

Levi felt cold. “Split up?”

“Every beast moves at a different pace, and most of us can’t walk that far on our own.”

“You want the camps to divide and just find their own way?”

“No!” Erwin shouted, looking mortified. “Not at all, in fact, what the others think might be best—if traveling is what we intend to do—is make up teams of foragers, healers, and trackers.”

“Like the scout teams?”

“Exactly.”

“Is that the only reason we’re still here? You don’t want to split everyone up?”

“I’m concerned about the foxes.”

“Forget about them!” Levi cried. “They abandoned us and it’s their fault we’re in this mess.”

“I’m not concerned for their safety, Levi, I’m concerned about ours. Historia knows where they went.”

“She… does?”

“She saw them leave and asked a few owls to watch them,” Erwin explained. “They have not gone far at all, in fact, they are close.”

“But the dogs…”

“Lost their scent, that’s all. The foxes hid their tracks well, but only a few miles out from here.”

“Why…” Levi began, but could not finish. “Why?”

“I don’t know yet, but until I do, I’ve urged everyone to stay in the trees. And Levi?”

“Yes?”

“I’m ordering you: do not go looking for them.”

Levi bit his lip. If it wasn’t a direct order, he would have slid down to the forest floor that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: no update this week. Sorry folks. We'll be back on the first of July.
> 
> Edit: Last week I was genuinely too busy to get the chapter up (sorry about that). This week I'm going through personal troubles that have put Walls on the back burner until further notice. After the next chapter goes up (and I can't promise when that will be) I won't be regularly updating on Wednesdays, I'll post when I can. (Which could potentially mean multiple chapters in one week).


	13. "Author's Note"

This concludes part one of Walls.

In high school, I took an English class and the teacher assigned us regular book and movie reviews with a slight catch: they had to be written in the form of journals and diaries from the perspective of the characters in the story.  
Walls was originally going to hearken back to that, because I had a lot of fun writing from another perspective. Writing an entire fanfiction like this was a bigger bite than I could chew, however. 

I took time off from this fic to focus on work. Now that I've got it balanced, I'll be diving back into Walls very soon.  
Part Two will be from one omnipotent perspective and will follow the characters through to the end.  
Look forward to it!


End file.
